


the best laid plans of mice and men.

by greatzodiac



Series: Armor-Piercing Bullets [2]
Category: Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Flirting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Language, F/F, Flashbacks, Girls with Guns, Guns, Holding Hands, I cannot believe patricide is a tag but you know what? yeah., Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Patricide, Slow Burn, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:39:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatzodiac/pseuds/greatzodiac
Summary: Vera tells Lena of the most she's ever lost, and how she got in the business in the first place. They end up teaming up to work together to figure out who ordered the hit in the first place, because it becomes apparent that someone has it out for both Lena and Vera. Work is never dull, and hiding is the only option they have left.(Contrary to what the date says, this was actually published while it was still August 1st for me. Happy National Girlfriend's Day!)





	the best laid plans of mice and men.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone's interested, I listened to a single song repeatedly while writing this: "March of the Rising Sun" by The Comet is Coming.
> 
> (Vera's flashbacks is all in italics and contains emotional/psychological/verbal abuse from her father. A warning has been placed before it so you can scroll past it, and the end of the flashback has marked with the divider lines. So has the beginning.)

Vera had to admit that she hadn’t stared an ultimatum dead in the eyes in a long time. Oddly enough, when she was last faced with it, that’s exactly where she was looking. The eyes of guilt are strong enough to haunt, and they never really left. How long she had spent trying to forget that day, and now she had to pour it out of her into the glass, Lena’s glass, for her to drink up her misery and sorrow.

30 minutes left. She had 30 minutes to reach into her and pull out the darkest day she spent most of her time drinking away and repressing. God, what a fucking card Lena is.

“Do you get off on other people’s sorrow or something?” Vera asked over the walkie talkie.

“Not necessarily,” Lena said, “but I might on yours.”

Vera made a disgusted noise in reply and got back to thinking. Sure, it would be easy enough to pretend she was oversharing, but saying she’s going to do it is easier than actually doing it. However, she had an idea; not necessarily to stall, but to put them on even playing ground.

“Tell me about John,” Vera said.

“What?”

“If you tell me about John, I’ll tell you about my equivalent.”

“ _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_ ,” Lena mocked.

Vera shrugged. “Mental and emotional scars, we both have ‘em. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

She couldn’t see it, but Lena narrowed her eyes. “You tryin’ to stall? Get someone over here faster than a pizza?”

“No,” Vera admitted. She cursed herself, though, because she absolutely could have done that, but she didn’t think about it. No one could get here in 25 minutes unless she stalled, but Lena was too wise, too quick for that. Not unless her main goal was to create a diversion instead of having her killed…

“And why should I tell you?” Lena asked. “What good reason is there for me to share that with you?”

“You’re making _me_ share _my_ greatest loss, and won’t even share yours?” Vera countered, trying to appeal to Lena’s reasonable side, if she had one. “Chances are this happened a long time ago, my own loss included, so we’ve had time to come to terms with it. The scar is there, but it’s healed. I have every right to hear about it if you’re going to ask me for mine.”

There were a few minutes that went past as Lena contemplated it.  _She has a point_ , she told herself. _You’re kinda being an asshole here._

 _Oh,_ I’m _the asshole for giving her an ultimatum? I was paid a lot of money to kill her,_ the other part of her argued. _If I’m an asshole, then I’m an asshole. So be it. Who gives a shit?_

“Oh my god,” Lena said out loud. Into the walkie talkie, she said, “Fine. I’ll tell you. But this in no way counts towards the hour. Got it?”

Vera replied, “Read you loud and clear.”

Lena sighed, then took a deep breath before recounting her tale.

“You know that no one across the factions is supposed to get married,” she said, “but we did anyway. We fell in love, and we got married anyway. You only live once, you know? That was our reasoning. That was… _his_ reasoning. John kept taking dangerous jobs, more and more risky, and he figured, ya know, he could die at any time, so why not get hitched? We were in love, we loved each other, so we did it.”

As much as she tried to hide the shaky breath she took in, Vera could still hear it. She knew that feeling well, and felt for her.

“And then there was a job gone wrong. Some teens wanted to something crazy, something stupid. Rich kids, naturally. Not like they would have gotten convicted in the first place. Some people in my faction knew their parents, and fuck, were they annoying. That’s what we were told. Got away with anything. We lost Haldane there; he went down first. John went after, but he told the other guy, Ray, to run and get back home base. I left town shortly thereafter.”

Vera paused and let it sink in, but the teens… that made something in her brain click.

“Should I attribute the bodies found in the lake to you?”

Lena sighed. “They weren’t teenagers anymore, none of them,” she defended. “I checked, I made sure. They had hit 20, they weren’t teens. Can you blame me, though? After what they did? They took away what was mine and I…”

“You took away someone’s children,” Vera said. “People with bright futures and college degrees. A family. Kids.” Like she was one to talk.

“Yeah,” Lena replied, and Vera could tell she was choking up. “I was seeing red and I didn’t give a shit about who they were. All I knew is that they took away what was mine, and I was pissed. I was so _fucking_ pissed. Do you think I regret it? Kinda. I kinda do. I put flowers on their graves every year, hoping to God that one day I can come to terms with that kind of revenge. But I know placing flowers on the graves of five dead boys won’t bring them back, no matter how hard I try.”

The walkie talkie clicked off and Vera didn’t have to be a psychic to tell that Lena was crying; she would be, too. Hell, she had tears in her eyes. She knew this kind of rage well, this blinding rage that consumed her soul the way a fire consumes paper. It drains everything out of you until you end up back at home, covered in blood, and reeling from what you just did. You’re not sure if you have enough energy to cry.

Vera waited a few minutes before the walkie talkie clicked back on over on Lena’s end. “Your turn,” she said shakily.

“Okay,” Vera said. “You know I didn’t know how to fire a gun until I was 18? This is when I learned to.”

 

* * *

**(WARNING: Emotional/psychological/verbal abuse below.)**

 

_“Are you hiding your report card on me again?” Vera’s dad asked._

_Vera looked up hastily from her dinner into her father’s eyes across the table. Through his glasses, the blue was still ice cold, even though she knew he cared._

_“No,” she said, “honestly. Mr. Cohen hasn’t given it to us yet. He wasn’t in today because of a golf meet across the state.”_

_“Are you lying to me?”_

_Vera huffed. “No, dad, I’m not.”_

_“Because I know you’re a good liar.”_

_“And who do you think taught me?” she fired back._

_The silence was tense until she and her dad both cracked a smile and started laughing. As much as this happened, Vera never knew if she was laughing in amusement or out of fear. She knew what he was like when she didn’t get straight A’s._

_She thought back to the moment it last happened, sophomore year, when she was in the shower, the only place she could cry in peace._

_Her report card was left on the counter at night for him to see in the morning. Anger doesn’t hit him hard in the morning, but she was wrong this time._

_“What the fuck is this?” he said, bursting into her room and catching her off guard. She had just woken up and here he was, interrogating her at six in the morning. “A_ B _? Really, Vera?”_

_“What about it?” she asked._

_“What about it?” he repeated. “You won’t get into any good schools if you keep up with this B shit. How many points away were you from an A?”_

_She scoffed. “I don’t know! It’s just a letter; they don’t give us the point values on the report card.”_

_He pointed at her, and she was afraid of what the point might turn into. “You find out,” he told her, “and you tell me when you get home later. Got it?”_

_“Got it,” she said, practically whispering._

_And then he did it. He softened up on her. “You know I just want the best for you.”_

You sure have a funny way of showing it, _she thought. “Yeah,” she replied instead, “I do.”_

_“I want you to do better than your knucklehead father here,” he chuckled._

_“I’m doing better in math than you ever hoped to do.”_

_“That’s right. So, you find out how you can get that grade up to an A, doing extra credit or whatever. Okay?”_

_“Okay.”_

_That was that. He left, she cried, she got dressed and cleaned up, and went to school._

_God knows there were moments like that sprinkled throughout her entire, 12-year long public school experience. Some had harsher words from them both, and higher and higher expectations as she kept succeeding and getting the best grades of her class, and God knows the sophomore slump was real and was the worst time of her life._

_Vera’s entire life was full of moments like that: anger, berating, hollering, and yelling; all of that followed by not-really-apologizing apologies, assurance, joking to break up the tension that he created. Talking to either of her parents was like navigating a minefield. Explosions either got her a stern chewing out, a hard whack on the back of her head as her father walked past, soap in her mouth – either bar or liquid – from her mother (all for saying “that sucks” when she was six), or much more emotional turmoil._

_“You’re just like your mother” was something frequently said by her father as an insult. Denying he said things Vera knew he said. Blaming her for things that were his fault. Sometimes he was joking when he made fun of her, but it still hurt. “I was just joking” never puts back the self-confidence that was stripped away._

_He’d never punch her, no, but his words were fists enough._

_“You can’t keep fucking up like this.”_

_“What did I tell you?”_

_“I just want what’s best for you.”_

_He never said “sorry.” Vera doubted that her dad has ever said “sorry.”_

_And his yelling? Jesus, that’s something she’ll never forget. When he yelled at his football games, she’d run and hide somewhere, or go over to a friend’s house just to escape it. She was always afraid that enough beer and football would result in him killing her, or her mother, or someone else. Her older siblings were out of the house as soon as they graduated, and as she got earlier, she could understand why._

_Her father’s yelling still reverberates in her ears sometimes, and echoes in her darkest dreams, in the darkest corners._

_A lost school paper she needed. Parents were downstairs trying to find it. Her bedroom door was open and she could see the light from the living room downstairs. Their voices came through to her clear as day as her mother’s voice remained low and her father’s voice kept raising, finally culminating in a loud yell from him:_

_“IT’S NOT IN THE DRAWER!”_

_Dead silence followed. She heard her mother come up the stairs. Vera sat up and hugged her as they cried. She looked over her mother’s shoulder and said something to her father. She couldn’t remember what anymore. She was glad she didn’t._

_A few years later, her parents divorced._

_The one lesson Vera ever learned from her father was that there’s a difference between loving someone and being_ in _love with someone. While he cared about her mother, and loved her, he just wasn’t_ in _love with her anymore._

_Later on in her life, it had been over a long time. She didn’t know if she was so oblivious, she didn’t see it, or she blocked out what she knew was an obvious truth. But the details got sadder and murkier as she learned more, and if her dad wasn’t going to be straight with her about it all, she wouldn’t push it._

_Sophomore year, Vera was diagnosed with depression. That explained a lot to her. Her father wouldn’t hear it. His remedy for everything she said was wrong was to “drink some water” and tell her “nothing’s wrong with you” because “you’re fine, nothing is wrong.” So, she stopped telling him when she didn’t feel well altogether. It wasn’t like he’d listen._

_She hated him. She hated him so much._

_But that opinion clashed with the other part of her that revered him: he’d gone through a lot in his life with a poor family, living with next to nothing and barely scraping by. They were like that many times, but he somehow found a way to get her and her siblings everything they wanted and needed. Food, new toys, new clothes, new books and school supplies. They’d make do with whatever they had. She loved him for that, and for being someone that gave her great advice and told her what she needed to hear._

_So, when she was facing him, knocked out and tied up, holding a gun to his head, did she pull the trigger? Or not?_

_It was before she went off to college when he disappeared. Sure, he’d work weird hours, but he’d always leave a note when he was going off somewhere. Maybe he’d call her later, she wondered._

_Then it was the afternoon and he hadn’t called._

_He hadn’t called that night and Vera made dinner for him, too, in case he came back hungry._

_He didn’t call in the night, nor did he call the next morning._

_One full week passed before she heard anything from anyone on his condition. Nothing on the police scanners, nothing on the news, nothing in the newspaper. Vera knew he could handle himself, and this is what she told herself when she didn’t call the police._ Someone will, _she thought. Her love for him wanted to call, but the part of her that wanted him to rot in Hell, didn’t._

_When she got a call, it was from an unfamiliar voice. A foreign voice, and not just because she didn’t know it. It was accented._

_“Do you want to know where your dad is?” she was asked._

_Vera shrugged. “Kinda,” she said. “He’s a dick, so I don’t care. Still, he’s paying for me to go to school, so I kind of need him to be here and alive.”_

_“Let’s roll with that first part for a bit,” the voice said. “Someone hired us to do this because your dad’s a dick.”_

_“Not surprised.”_

_“Come to the building on Jasper Mill Road, it has 241 on it.”_

_“Yeah, problem with that,” Vera said. “I can’t drive.”_

_“What?”_

_“I can’t drive.”_

_“Do you not have a car for you to drive?”_

_“No, I mean I cannot drive. I don’t have a license. I passed the written portion of the test but…”_

_“We’ll send a car, then. It’ll be there in 15 minutes. Is that okay?”_

_“I’m assuming you know where I live?”_

_“We do.”_

_“I’ll see you in 15, then.”_

_Vera hung up, and thought to herself that that was the weirdest conversation she’d ever had, on the phone or in person. At least they were polite about it, and not demanding a ransom. She would have let her dad die if that were the case._

_Soon enough, an unmarked van pulled up, and when the person driving yelled her name, she knew it was whoever sent it._

_“So, like… what is it you do?” Vera asked the driver._

_“What do you mean?” he asked._

_“This,” she gestured. “The person on the phone who told me you have my dad. What is it?”_

_He shrugged after a moment. “I’m not sure I’m at liberty to say.”_

_Vera thought for a moment. “If I were to throw professions out there, and you were to nod ‘yes’ or shake your head ‘no,’ I don’t think that could count as saying it.”_

_“Maybe,” he said._

_“Are you part of the mob?” Vera asked._

_“Some would think that of us, yeah,” he said. “But not technically. I mean, we work like it and act like it, but we’re independent of all mob organizations in this city, even the one your dad was in.”_

_Vera was surprised. “Wait, what?”_

_The driver tried to backtrack. “Uh, I mean…”_

_“So, you’re hitmen? Like, you’re assassins?”_

_He sighed. “Yeah.”_

_“Get paid a lot?”_

_“More than your family makes in a year.”_

_“We don’t make a lot.”_

_“Okay, double it.”_

_“That’s still not a lot.”_

_“Jesus, you’re poor, aren’t you? That’s what your dad said.”_

_“Pretty much.”_

_“Shit, after college, we could totally bring you on.”_

_The last thing Vera ever expected out of her life was to be offered a job by a hitman who wanted her to be financially secure, but it turned out to be a pretty decent conversation. They have health insurance_ and _dental insurance, and the commission rates work pretty well._

_“The percentage is lower when you start off,” the driver said, “but the more prolific you become, and the longer you survive without getting caught, that’s when it all pays off. It takes a few years, but if you really stick with it, you can get rich real fast.”_

_It was a very insightful conversation, and Vera joked if there was a brochure she could be given. The driver said there wasn’t, but they were actually working on one._

_She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not._

_She asked him what his name was, for future reference, and he gave it to her: Buck. He was one of the senior recruits, as the faction was still fairly new, but he rose through the ranks quickly. Buck was quite proud of it._

_He directed her to the building after dropping her off a couple blocks down and waiting in the van, which looked suspicious just sitting there, unmarked, slightly visible from the main road. It looked even more suspicious when it backed into a side alley and waited there. Buck gave Vera a wave. She waved back, hesitant at first, but then made her way into the building where she was told to go._

_With a mighty push from her semi-athletic 18-year old arms that she hadn’t worked out in a long time, and definitely pulling something, the metal front door opened and unsurprisingly, it was pitch black._

_Vera didn’t know what she expected._

_A single light turned on in the center of the room, in the narrow corridor she was looking down and found her dad, his hands tied above his head and the other end of the rope was tied to a metal bar feet above them. He was on his knees, head down, covered in blood. His clothes were torn and matted. It was like it had been lifted straight out of a movie. The atmosphere. The tension. The smell of blood. The tension was tangible and Vera could feel it on her skin, under her skin, tiny bugs crawling all over here and making her more and more uneasy._

_She just wanted to go, but when she did, would her father be with her?_

_“Hello, Vera,” a voice said, before the accompanying body stepped out of the shadows behind her dad. “I believe we spoke on the phone earlier.” Not a question. It was matter of fact._

_“We did,” Vera agreed, jamming her fingers in her jean pockets. “So… what’s this about?”_

_“Do you say that a lot? ‘So?’”_

_“Yeah, it just happens. Same with ‘like.’”_

_The woman made a noise. “Well, anyway, my name is Faye. Did you know your father was part of a mob organization? Organized crime?”_

_Vera shrugged. “No,” she said, and held her tongue so she wouldn’t accidentally rat out the driver. “No,” she said again, more confident. “I had no idea. Pretty name.”_

_“Well, he was,” Faye said. “That’s why he’s been here for the past week. And thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome. So, what’d he do? Did he, like, kill people?”_

_Faye made a noise. “Yeah. More than one at time, though. A group of people.” She made a gesture with her hands that looked like she was making a globe. “Close people. Tight-knit.”_

_Vera raised an eyebrow. “Families, then?”_

_“Yeah,” Faye nodded, “families. I don’t know if you’re the kind of person that just wants to be told straight or figure it out for themselves, but yeah, he killed families.”_

_“Children, too?”_

_“Well…” Faye made the noise again. “He wasn’t supposed to, but he would anyway. No survivor’s kind of guy. Didn’t want any witnesses that would call the police or come back in 20 years trying to kill him.”_

_“They wouldn’t have to wait 20 years,” Vera said. “I would have done it sooner, but he’s helping me pay to go to college, so…”_

_“Loans are murder, aren’t they?” Faye sympathized. Vera gave her a weird look and Faye immediately realized what she’d said. “Oh. Oh, my god. I’m… uh… no pun intended, of course. Jesus, I’m sorry.”_

_Vera took one of her hands out of her pocket and waved it dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. I’m sure it happens all the time, yeah?”_

_“More than you would think,” Faye sighed. “Anyway, back to your shitty dad.”_

_She suddenly realized that there was very little room for her to work her way around him; this was an awfully small corridor, and back where Faye came out of, it had to have been more open. Stepping carefully to the side of him and pressing herself up against the wall, she slid by, making sure she didn’t step in what looked to be new bloodstains on the floor. At least it wasn’t carpet, or else it would have stained horribly._

_When she was through, Faye pulled a revolver out from the back of her pants and handed it to Vera. “Now, if you really do not like your father, you can be the one to kill him. But there is some information you should be aware of first before you make up your mind.”_

_“My mind has been made up for a long time,” Vera said, struggling to pull the hammer down. She’d never done anything with a gun before; she’d never touched one, let alone fire one. Once the hammer was down, she held the gun with both hands and pointed it directly at her father’s head. One pull of the trigger and it’d all be over. All of the emotional and verbal abuse she and her siblings suffered at his hands, what her mom suffered, too… she could blow the memories away with a bullet that would blow his life away. Easy enough, in theory._

_Faye hit Vera’s back with something light and said, “Look at this, before you do anything else. Before you do anything more. Please.”_

_Vera clenched her jaw and whipped around, with Faye keeping her own hand out so it didn’t point at herself. She gingerly took the gun out of her hand and replaced it with the manila envelope she had hit Vera with._

_Upon closer inspection of the contents of said envelope, Vera found her dad, smiling, surrounded by children, also smiling, and a cheerful woman._

_But this was not her family years ago. This was now. This was recent._

_The more and more she flipped through the pictures, the more things made sense and the more anguished she became. Birthday parties, for the three children, all recent: the eldest was sixteen, the middle was ten, and the youngest was five. There were pictures of them at the beach, pictures of them having picnics and fun family outings on boats and at petting zoos._

_Vera and her siblings never got that with their dad. They’d only get it on field trips._

_The pictures painted a clear picture, however: her father had a secret family, that he’d been keeping secret for years, and that timeline caused an issue, because her parents weren’t divorced when she was 2-years old, and that’s when the first child was born. Had he been having an affair, or were her parents separated for longer than she knew? For longer than she was told? And they waited until Vera was old enough to tell her?_

_Nothing made sense anymore. Her thoughts were jumbled and the envelope fell from her hand, papers scattering, and one picture landing in blood, obscuring her dad’s face. She fell against a wall and slid down it, in true dramatic fashion, she told herself later, pulling her knees up to her chest. Vera started to cry. She cried because she had missed out on so much that these other kids got while she got berated for not overachieving enough. While she was stuck inside studying all weekend, these kids went to the zoo. To the park. To the beach. Small memories clicked together with these, unlocking more things that kept fitting together and the picture of the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle was finally coming together._

_Certain things were making sense. The sand in the back of the car. Long hours. Long weekends. Days where she wouldn’t see him because he had “business trips.” He lied to her, blatantly. And to do what? Give his other kids a better life than she had? Was that it?_

_“I’m sorry,” Faye said quietly. “You’re a smart girl, so I think that you can think about what happens if you pull that trigger. If you don’t, he’s going back to this family and not you. It’s something you should know. I’ll be outside.”_

_Vera didn’t look up but could hear the clicking of Faye’s shoes get quieter until the door opened and closed again._

_The gun was left on the floor in front of her._

_She looked at the gun. She looked at her dad._

_Nothing he could tell her could explain this, but he tried anyway, regaining some consciousness some moments before Faye left._

_“I was just a widow’s friend at first,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Her husband was killed and we were partners. I went to comfort her. I didn’t do anything until after the divorce went through all those years later.”_

_Taking a shaky breath in, Vera stood up. “Except for having kids. Except for starting a second family and a second life. Why should I believe anything you say?” she asked. “After all this time, when you’ve done nothing but lie?”_

_“I knew you’d be sore!” he replied. “I know you love your mother and it wouldn’t have been easy on you for me to just spring this on you.”_

_“So, you just kept it quiet, is that it?” Vera grew enraged, picking the gun up and pulling the hammer back. “That I’d never know? You’re more of an idiot than I ever believed you were if you think that bullshit,” she spat._

_When her dad coughed, he coughed up blood onto the floor. Whatever was happening, he’d gotten beaten up badly and was bleeding internally. If Vera didn’t kill him, he’d die soon, anyway. He wouldn’t be able to go back to that family of his._

_Approaching him slowly, carefully, Vera grabbed his hair in one hand and jerked his face up to look into her eyes._

_“All I did…” he whispered, “all I did was because I love you.”_

_She couldn’t take it anymore. Before letting his head go, Vera whispered something into his ear, and made full eye contact when she moved away. She used both hands and pointed the gun up at the light bulb and pulled the trigger, looking away._

_The bulb popped with the sound of it exploding and Vera let out a small shriek. Now that she fired it once, she was confident she could do it again. She bumped her dad’s head with her hand to check where he was, pulled the hammer back, and put it up against his head._

 

* * *

 

“Heavy,” Lena breathed. That was all she could think to say. “What did you tell him?”

Vera didn’t realize she had started to cry again. She cleared her throat before speaking away and said, “I told him… ‘I want the last thing you ever see to be the eyes of the daughter that have been haunted by you.’” She choked back a sob. “After that, I asked Faye about joining after college. They helped pay my tuition and my loans. Got good grades, made the Dean’s List. Earned my place in that faction. After college, I was welcomed into a weird, bizarre family I never knew I had. Buck ended up dying, though. He was a good friend, a good mentor.”

“And what about his kids?”

“Oh, _fuck_ his kids!” Vera snarled. “Fuck her and fuck those kids. They got what my family never had! Do you know what that’s like? To see the smiling faces of a family that could have been yours but never was because your dad was an asshole and started messing around with a widow? What movie has he been watching, huh? I had a dad in my life, sure, but the older I got, the more I realized that he wasn’t a parent: he was a drill instructor. So much yelling! So much yelling at me to _be better_ or _do better_ or God forbid I get a B, or else I’m _worthless._ I didn’t get that love! He’d show love sometimes, but it was in a funny fucking way. He’d get me things, yeah, made sure I was clothed and fed and went on all the fun school trips. But we never did anything together. No family time. I barely even _know_ my siblings! Do I feel bad? I might, deep down, for taking away someone’s, or three someone’s, parent. But now they have what I had, and I think that’s pretty fucking even.”

With a click of the walkie talkie, she wasn’t speaking anymore and broke down again. She turned it back on. “Did I love him for what he gave me, gave _us_ , even when we didn’t have a lot of money? Sure! At one point, I even revered this man and to me, he was like a god. He was like _God_ ,” she emphasized. “I loved him! And that love would go to hate, and that hate would flip to love. Back and forth, and back and forth. I hated it! I hated _him_!”

She ran her hands over her face and took a quick breather before she kept venting. “I always told him, in jest, that I’d be the one to kill him. I bet he never thought that I’d actually do it.” Vera weakly laughed before getting emotional again. “How do I deal with it, though? I killed a father, not just my own, but… yeah. I killed a husband. A friend. An idol. I never looked them up afterwards, because I was afraid what my anger might make me do. I’m a lot of things as a hitman, or hitwoman, but one of those things is _not_ child killer. How do I deal with what I did? How do I come to terms with that? How the _fuck_ am I supposed to deal with that?” Her voice got quieter the more introspective she got until she just stopped talking altogether, until she spoke one final time. “That… _that_ is the most I’ve ever lost.”

There was a lull in the conversation for five minutes when Lena spoke up. “So… you’ve never looked in on the kids? Not once?”

Vera huffed. “What do you think, Sherlock? Not really, no. It’s been years and the eldest is in out in the world now. He’s… 26, I think? Jesus, ten years already.” She shook her head. “What do you think the odds are that this whole charade started on the tenth anniversary of me committing patricide?”

Lena was surprised about this sudden change in her mood. Vera was upset and crying, having a near emotional breakdown as she recalled what had gotten her into this business in the first place and now she was making a joke? Whatever works, she figured.

“That’d be… a bit weird,” Lena admitted. “It’s September 2nd, by the way, if you aren’t looking at a calendar.”

Oh.

Oh my god.

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!” Vera said. “Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus fucking _Christ. Jesus_ fucking _Christ._ ” She went through all the possible ways to put emphasis on that particular sentence and ended with shouting, “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

It was dead silent for about a minute on Vera’s end before Lena cleared her throat. “So, uh… I guess it _is_ the anniversary of then, isn’t it?”

The next thing Lena heard was the walkie talkie clicking off on Vera’s end and a loud, shrill scream that sounded angrier than Ray when Ray found out that Cheetos discontinued the twisted version of the puff. The ensuing tantrum featured him crying for three days straight and screaming “YOU FUCKERS” in between regular, angry screams.

It was a dark day in 2013 when Ray found out. He still buys them, but everyone avoids mentioning what was and what shall never be again.

Now, when Vera screamed and cursed, it could be heard across the way by Lena because _dear God_ does she have some pipes on her. Lena started thinking during this mess about if Ray really did have someone make a curly Cheeto puff plush pillow and get paid $500 for it, or if that was just a rumor that was spread around in the shadows of the base. Looking back, Ray _did_ mellow out after he supposedly got it. Maybe he did have it, after all. 

Vera had taken some time to text Leckie and ask him about why he hadn’t been able to find anything on the person that ordered the contract.

 

**VERA       1:21PM**

Hey Leckie, why couldn’t find that person that hired the contracts? you finally losing your touch? lmao

 

**BOBERT       1:22PM**

My name is still listed in your phone as “Bobert,” isn’t it?

 

**VERA       1:22PM**

Of course

 

**BOBERT       1:23PM**

Then we’re not talking.

 

**VERA       1:23PM**

And just when I thought things were going so well, Bobert.

 

**BOBERT       1:24PM**

It’s a wonder how no one’s had you murdered sooner.

 

**VERA       1:24PM**

Rude, Bobert, very rude

 

**BOBERT       1:24PM**

This would be easier if you just changed it to “Professor” like I asked.

 

**VERA       1:25PM**

Because it makes you sound cooler

 

**BOBERT       1:25PM**

Cooler than Bobert

 

**VERA       1:26PM**

Well it’s fuckin funny as shit so I’m not changing it

 

**VERA       1:26PM**

In all seriousness, how were you not able to find that person

 

**BOBERT       1:29PM**

Even I don’t know. The IP address changed every time you refreshed the page. Their activity would put them in London, then Mexico City, Moscow, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Eindhoven, wherever the fuck that last place is.

 

**BOBERT       1:30PM**

To boil it down to what you want to hear: it’s so encrypted that even I couldn’t find out, and that’s saying something.

 

**VERA       1:31PM**

Ok, that’s all I needed to know. You don’t have to jerk off your own ego here, man. I’d prefer you do it in private

 

**BOBERT       1:32PM**

Text me later when you’re done with this whole thing. Maybe celebratory drinks?

 

**BOBERT       1:32PM**

;)

 

**VERA       1:33PM**

In your dreams, Professor

 

 _Back to the drawing board,_ Vera thought. And most importantly, back to her rage that was bordering on unbridled.

“I am… I am _beyond_ pissed right now, holy shit,” Vera said. “I don’t know _why_ it makes me angry, but I am.”

“Have you told anyone about you killing your dad?” Lena asked. “Because I know that you know that that person knows. And maybe whoever set up this whole contract thing is the someone that knows.”

Vera sighed. “Listen, I can’t keep doing this walkie talkie shit. Can we can just meet face-to-face and talk like decent people for a moment?”

This stunned Lena and left her highly confused. She doubted it was a trick, a trap, to lure her in under the guise of talking and then jump out from behind the door and kill her. It was plausible, yes, and very possible that was what Vera was going for, but this connected to grief. As someone that grieved for a long time in the past, she knew what was being felt, and knew Vera wouldn’t use it as a trap.

“Okay,” she agreed, “but there’s at _least_ ten feet between us at all times.”

“That’s fine by me,” Vera said, crawling out from the kitchen. “Let me unlock the door.”

“Or I could just… shoot the lock out.”

“I would prefer you didn’t.”

“Why? You’ve got money to replace it, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Because I don’t wanna call a locksmith and be like, _Yeah, this woman just shot my lock and destroyed it because she wanted to have fun. Crazy, right?_ I’m not fuckin’ doing that!”

“Live a little!” Lena joked. “Have some fun.”

“Maybe later, when we find someone else to shoot.”

“It’s ‘we’ now?”

“Ugh,” Vera said, reaching up and unlocking the door. “You can come in now. Please wipe your feet on the mat before coming in and leave all weapons outside.”

“You’re no fun.”

As Lena made her way over to Vera’s place, Vera took her weaponry that was lying out in the living room and put it all in her bedroom so Lena could see that she wasn’t walking into a trap. She also tidied up the living room, because for some reason, she didn’t want Lena to see what a horrible mess of a human being she was in her downtime. But as she did this, an idea came to life in her mind.

“You know what? I change my mind,” Vera said, speaking into the walkie talkie. “There’s a café around here and that’ll be much better to talk at. No room for brawling or killing because we’re in public.”

“That’s… actually not a bad idea,” Lena admitted. “I’ll see you there in five.”

“Deal.”

The walk was quick and short, and was a nice enough place. Locally owned with some of the best coffee Vera ever had. Sometimes there were karaoke nights, and others would feature small bands playing for their friends and friends of friends, cheered on by the ever-supportive crowd who had too much caffeine in their systems. But for the most part, it had good coffee and good food, and that’s all anyone could ask for.

“Couch or table?” were Lena’s first words to Vera when they met each other, face-to-face, no weapons anywhere, for the first time.

“Either is fine with me,” Vera replied. “I’m not picky.”

The table it was. Lena waited at it and made sure no one else came in to take it as Vera ordered both their drinks. She decided against ordering food, because she didn’t know what Lena would like. She did know about her allergies, which are that she has none, thank you to the database for this information.

After Vera arrived and set their drinks down, she took a sip and sighed. “So, what you mentioned earlier. You think that this being the anniversary of my patricide _–_ ”

“Dude. Lower,” Lena interrupted, gesturing with her hand for Vera to lower her voice.

Vera huffed and talked quietly. “You think that this being the anniversary of my _patricide–_ ” she said in an extra low whisper, “ _–_ is the reason that this whole charade is happening in the first place?”

“It makes sense if you think about it,” Lena said. “I mean, this thing gets set up, right? This person _knows_ that it’ll take more than a day for us to kill each other. They also know that you would tell me about it, or the event would be brought up, and it would happen _on this day_. It’s a bit weird.”

“I’d normally say it’s a weird coincidence,” Vera replied, “but with the letters I’ve been getting the mail recently, it’s looking a lot like it’s more than that.”

“Hold on, letters? Tell me.”

“So, for about a month leading up to yesterday’s events, I kept getting weird letters in the mail. Unmarked. No postage, no return address, absolutely nothing except for my name,” Vera explained. “But whoever it is, they’re delivering these letters by hand, or having someone else do it for them, which would be smarter, because they wouldn’t get caught like that if I were to burst outside suddenly. The thing is, the letters are delivered and arrive at the exact same time every day. Noon, 12 o’clock, right on the dot. Makes _no_ fuckin’ sense. And neither do the contents of the letter, half the time.”

“What would the letters say?”

“Sometimes it’d be shit in Latin, which I didn’t care to translate, nor would I have the time to sit down and type out a paragraph of text into Google Translate. I didn’t give a shit,” Vera said. “But then they got aggressive.”

“Aggressive? How?”

“If you’d let me speak and not interrupt me for the millionth time, maybe you’d find out how,” Vera joked. Well, half-joked. “Anyway, because a few them were in Latin and I didn’t care to translate them because I thought these were pranks, I guess I missed a few instructions. The next letter that came after that was made from cut-out letters. You know, like ransom notes?”

Lena nodded.

“This one said something weird, like, I hadn’t shown up to ‘the meeting place’ to ‘confront my destiny,’” she said, using air quotes. “And that for it, I’d pay. But I left a note on the mailbox for when they came around the next day, and I said to stop putting the important shit in a foreign language because I wouldn’t bother reading it or trying to translate it, not like I was trying anyway. So, they switched to quotes from old movies and books. Poetry, too, I got, but like, if I got some _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ shit, I was going to destroy my mailbox completely.”

Lena groaned. “God, I hated reading that poem in school. Mainly because it was too long.”

“I know, right?” Vera said, taking a break from talking and drinking her iced coffee instead. “I think I still have one of them in my jacket…” She let the sentence trail off as she rifled through her jacket pockets, trying to find it. “Here it is.” She spread it out on the table for both of them to see. It read:

 

_“HEAD and HANDS need a mediator._

_THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN_

_HEAD AND HANDS_

_MUST BE THE HEART!”_

_Find who I am,_

_and you will_

_have found_

_the heart_

_you need._

 

“Huh,” Lena said. “This is like some really shitty poetry. Not even original, too.”

Vera was confused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re lucky I downloaded this movie a couple nights ago and watched it, because it’s from a movie. An old movie. 1927, it was silent,” Lena elaborated. “It’s from _Metropolis_.”

“Any romance?”

“Kinda,” Lena said. “The main guy falls in love with this girl, except he’s super rich and she’s a worker down beneath the entire city. The _metropolis,_ if you will.”

Now it was Vera’s turn to groan. “Get on with it.”

“Anyway, the girl predicts that there’s going to be someone to join the working class – the hands – and the extraordinarily wealthy people – the head – together, and that’s the mediator. She ends up getting her appearance put onto a robot and she convinces the workers to destroy everything. They overthrow her, the main guy brings his super rich dad and the girl together to shake hands, and everything’s good.”

“Is this person trying to bring us together, or something?” Vera spit-balled. “One of us is head, the other hands, and they’re heart?”

Lena looked over at Vera, a twinkle in her eyes. “You’ve revealed my master plan! _I_ am the one who wrote the letters! I’ve long admired you, and wanted to be with you.”

Vera tried to quiet Lena down because: (1) they were in a public place; and (2) _this is ridiculously embarrassing Jesus please stay quiet please don’t let anyone look over at us._ She hid her face in her hands and waited for it all to be over as Lena spilled her “plan” out in front of everyone.

“Are you done?” Vera asked, voice muffled behind her hands. Lena grabbed them and rested them on the table in her own.

“I’m done,” Lena asked, “I’m done. You do have to admit that us being here and talking over coffee, and now me holding your hands, does look a little suggestive.”

Vera was confused yet again. How many times does this make it? “You wouldn’t date me, I’m–”

“A girl?” Lena finished. “If you think I’m not into girls, you’re dead wrong, because I am. Guys, too.”

For a moment, Vera completely blanked. “I was gonna say something else, but okay, thanks for that confession.”

“What were you gonna say?” Lena implored.

“You wouldn’t date me, I’m…” Vera leaned back and threw her hand dramatically against her forehead, “ _damaged goods._ ”

Lena withheld a cackle as Vera poured out her ‘50s era confession. “My husband died in the war, and I loved him so. After that, it was hard for me to get a job and keep it. I bounced around from secretary’s desk to waitress. My bosses kept trying to take advantage of me but I’d reject them every time, and they’d fire me on the spot. That’s when I really fell into hard times.” She leaned forward and Lena leaned in also. “Cigarettes. Smoking, drinking, gambling, betting on the ponies… I almost died. It was horrible; almost as horrible as the man that made me into it. He’s since died, and it was _me_ who did it, in a rage after he tossed me to the side for some harlot. The police tried to arrest me, but I escaped, and I’ve been on the lam ever since. I’ve been changing identities so often that I don’t even remember my own name half the time. My dream is Hollywood: to become an actress and pay off my debts. I deserve better.” In a low whisper, she repeated, “I deserve _better._ ”

Finally bursting out into laughter, Lena clapped and struggled to breath. “I didn’t know how much you were going to sell it,” she confessed, taking in a deep breath, “but I knew you were when you said _on the lam_ , God. No one uses that phrase anymore. The leaning in was very suspenseful,” she added. But deep down, a part of her felt that the suspense was caused by something else that wasn’t the story. Lena’s accelerated heart rate sure said so.

“Thank you, thank you, I thrive on being dramatic whenever I don’t need to be,” Vera said, taking a bow, or doing as much of one as she could whilst seated at a table. When Lena leaned in, Vera had to admit she was thinking about doing something that wouldn’t have been incredibly wise. She didn’t know if she wanted to keep thinking about it or not. _Whatever,_ she said to herself, _this is a problem for Future Vera._

Future Vera would love to kick Past Vera’s ass if she could.

“Back to the matter at _hand_ ,” Lena said, ignoring the quiet groan from Vera over the pun, “there’s a good chance that the person that organized the contract and the person sending you these letters is the exact same person.”

“Right,” Vera said. “So, what we need to do is go back to my place, and–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Vera stopped her. “On the first date?”

“What do you m–”

“I mean, you’re cute and all, but I don’t do that for just anybody.”

“Lena, what–”

“If you insist that I do,” Lena said, throwing her hands in the air. “Sure, let’s go back to your place.” With a wink she added, “But I t–”

“Are you coming or not?” Vera asked, then polished off the rest of her coffee, and Lena did the same.

As they headed out the door, Lena asked, “Why can’t you live a little? Have some fun?”

Vera snorted. “Because things are expensive. And also, are you really acting like you didn’t just hear my life story like, half an hour ago?”

“Point taken,” Lena laughed. “I really gotta work on that.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’”

They started to walk in the direction of Vera’s house, and Lena explained. “Well, we’re going to have to work together to figure this whole thing out, with the contract. Who did it and why. What they have against you, and what they have against me, because they would have just hired someone to kill you if they have beef, not pit us against each other. It doesn’t make sense, and you’re not doing it alone.”

Vera stopped walking and Lena stopped, too, turning to face her.

“What’s stopping either of us from just killing the other and getting this all over with?” Vera asked, her face stone cold and having no shred of happiness on it like moments prior.

“The hope that we both have enough morality left in us to not do that,” Lena replied. “The hope that we can put this contract aside and figure out why someone wants us both dead. I don’t know about you, but life is pretty all right currently. For me, anyway.”

“You got a plan?”

Lena smiled. “Baby, I’ve always got a plan.”

A moment passed. Vera snorted. “God, that was so cheesy.” Smiling she turned back on the sidewalk and kept walking, lightly punching Lena in the arm as she did. “Come on, let’s get back to my place so you can unveil this plan of yours.”

When they got back and Vera cracked open a wine cooler for both of them, they settled themselves in on the couch and Lena launched into it.

“Right now, we read the current letter that’s in your mailbox. Because this all started yesterday, there’s definitely one in there talking about the whole shebang. That means there’s one in there today. And because there’s one today, that means we have to stake the mailbox out to get the person delivering the letter at noon tomorrow.”

“That’s not a lot.”

“No, it isn’t,” Lena admitted. “But then we take it from there and figure out what to do. I suggest we tranquilize the person delivering the letter, bring them in here, tie them up, and demand answers.”

“Ah, a classic technique,” Vera said, putting on airs of a wine taster. “Is this a vintage noir?”

Lena threw a pillow at her. “Can it. We can’t do much until tomorrow. Which leads me to ask this… can I stay here for the night, or do you want me to go?”

Vera shook her head, grinning. “You’re _really_ trying to make this sound like a one-night stand, aren’t you?”

“Trying my damndest,” Lena conceded. “How am I doing?”

“Better than most,” Vera said.

In the end, Vera let Lena stay, putting her on the couch. “You’re in the doghouse tonight,” she joked, and Lena briefly imagined a world where they were together and a scenario where Vera might say that. She probably forgot to take out the garbage again, or broke a DVD on accident.

She snapped out of that quickly, as she didn’t need those thoughts right now to muddle everything else roaming around inside her brain.

Vera ended up having to do the same before she drifted off to sleep.

Morning came with nothing eventful happening in the night, save for Lena clipping her knee on the coffee table when she got up to use the bathroom and swore rather loudly. She didn’t know Vera could hear her call the coffee table “a freeloading motherfucker,” but Vera did in what she called a stroke of luck, because she was trying to get comfortable again when it happened.

After Vera got up and she saw Lena was already up, too, Vera asked, “So how did you and the freeloading motherfucking coffee table sleep?” Lena reddened and another pillow was thrown at Vera.

“Shut up,” Lena said. “It sits there and does nothing.”

“I give it a purpose, and it’s to hold things,” Vera countered. “It’s a mutualistic relationship we have. I give it a purpose to hold things, and my shit doesn’t fall on the floor and has a place to be.”

Lena thought for a moment in jest. “Hmm… sounds fair. But does it pay rent?”

Vera didn’t laugh because she looked at the clock and realized they both had slept in: it was 11:50 now, and that only gave them 10 minutes to set up. Lena jumped off the couch when Vera told her the time, and rushed out to get her gun bag and run back across the street. Sure, she looked a bit ridiculous doing this at noon, but there were bigger fish to fry.

Vera sat on the floor in her kitchen, hiding herself from the two windows by the front door, and read over the letter from yesterday that she missed.

 

            _Then say to the others_

_Who did not follow through:_

_“You’re still our brothers,_

_and we will fight_

_for you.”_

_Do your job._

_Do it well._

_I believe_

_in you._

Vera was glad she hadn’t seen this, because it most definitely would have deterred her, and she would have been thinking about it all day. This was creepy, to say the least, and very much like a stalker, to say the most.

“Literally what the fuck,” Vera said to no one. “Why?”

Outside, there was a yelp and a thump, and when Vera looked at the clock, she saw it was just turning 12:01. She sprung up and dashed outside, only to find a body at her feet when she opened it up.

“Well, I see you got him,” Vera said as Lena approached.

“Yeah, and I fuckin’ know the guy!” Lena exclaimed, bag slung over her shoulder. _Had she really taken it apart so fast?_

“Is he one of us?” Vera asked?

“Yeah,” Lena said. “His name is Ray. Motormouth kind of guy, easily excitable. Will do just about anything for cash. He means well, though.”

Vera balked. “He _means well_? How could you–”

“We just need to wait for him to wake up,” Lena said. “That’s all we can do right now, like I said.”

Having no choice but to agree and wait, Vera huffed and went back inside as Lena grabbed Ray’s legs and pulled him in the house. At least she didn’t have to drag him up the three steps.

Waiting for him to wake up took longer than expected, because it took three hours and a lot of Mad Libs for him to come out of his unconscious state. At one point, Lena got bored and took one of Vera’s paddle balls and played against Ray’s head for a few minutes, eventually giving up because she got bored and “if there’s no reaction from him, it’s just not fun.” Ray woke up during another rousing round of Mad Libs, who was laying on the couch.

“Give me a verb,” Vera said, in one of the chairs next to the coffee table, her feet kicked up.

“Dick,” Lena replied, her feet also kicked up, sitting in an identical chair across from Vera.

“I said verb.”

“Dick _ed_.”

Vera sighed. “Fair enough.”

There was a loud groan from the couch, they both whipped their heads over to look at Ray, who was between them, stretching and making increasingly louder noises. “Where the fuck am I?” he moaned, leg falling off the couch and then the rest of his body went down with him.

“Hey, Ray, it’s Lena,” Lena said. “You’re in the house of the girl I’ve been hired to kill, and who’s been hired to kill me.”

This got Ray up real fast, who jumped back up, still slightly lethargic from coming out his tranquilized state, and almost immediately fell over again. He ended up sliding over the back of the couch more than he did climb over it, and landed with another thud and a groan.

“Ray, it’s fine,” Vera said, “I don’t bite.”

“Much,” Lena added.

“Why are you working together?” Ray asked from behind the couch. “Aren’t you two supposed to kill each other or something?”

“Well, yeah, but something’s come up,” Lena said. “Why don’t you tell us about these letters and who’s making you deliver them?”

There was a pause. “I can’t,” Ray said. “Not only am I paid for my amazing delivery services, I’m also paid for my silence.”

“How much?” Vera asked.

“$200 for each letter delivered.”

“Jesus,” Lena breathed.

“So, he’s either very wealthy and has a vendetta,” Vera said, “or he’s one of us and has a vendetta.”

“My money’s on the latter,” Lena commented.

Ray scrambled up and started making his way to the door. “I gotta go, guys, I can’t be here.”

“Why?” Lena question, standing in front of the door and blocking his way out. “What’s gonna happen? You’ll die?”

“Yes!” Ray exclaimed. “Yes, I will! I’m only supposed to the drop the letter off and go, not linger here like this!”

“Then tell us who’s hired you to do this!” Vera said, coming up beside him.

Before Ray could say anything, a shot rang out. The glass of one of the front window’s shattered as a bullet pierced it, and pierced Ray Person, killing him. Blood splattered everywhere and covered Lena and Vera, who stood there in shock as Ray lay stagnant on the ground, not moving, not breathing.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!” Vera stuttered out, breathing heavy.

Lena didn’t say everything, as a memory played over and over again in her head, and how Ray was in this exact position before. The exact moment that Ray was in that led to the death of Haldane and John. It was horrible. That’s the only word that could come to mind. Visceral. Traumatizing. Those came in, too.

“Letter,” she said finally. “Get the letter. He never got it out of his pocket. It’s there.”

Vera had to admit she felt a bit weird searching through the jacket of a man that just died in front of her, and whose blood she was now covered in, but she had to put that aside for now. She found two letters: one in an envelope and one not, but the envelope had her name in. She stuffed the other one in her pocket to read later. Taking the letter out of the letter and opening it, she found it only said one thing:

 _ONE YEAR._  

“One year,” she said out loud. “One year for what?”

Another gunshot rang out, and came through the door, dangerously close to Lena’s head. She dropped down and crawled to the kitchen on her forearms; Vera did the same. Gunshots kept coming, bullet after bullet, destroying the front of the house and coming through the lone kitchen window that sat way up high. Glass littered the floor and covered them as they stayed down, covering their heads with pans. This went on for a few minutes and didn’t seem to end until they realized they couldn’t hear the shooting anymore, but they did hear footsteps on the front porch.

“Go out the back window,” Vera whispered. “It’s in the bedroom. I have an idea. I’ll catch up with you.”

Lena nodded and obeyed, pushing the glass out of her way with the pan before crawling away. She hastily made her way in the room and opened the window, climbing out and staying low. There was nothing back here but an alleyway and the solid wall of an abandoned building lining it. She waited.

Inside, she heard a whooshing noise, followed by a yell and a door slamming. Vera opened up her closet and pulled out a smoke grenade. Illegal, sure, but everything she did was illegal and bordered on it. She was employed in an illegal profession, so this shouldn’t be surprising.

She pulled the pin on it and chucked it out into the living room before slamming her bedroom door closed and locking it. Vera then climbed out the window and narrowly avoided landing on Lena, which she apologized for.

“Come on, this way,” Vera said, running out to a main road and going away from downtown.

“What’s the plan?” Lena asked as she followed.

“There’s a bar down here for us to blend in at,” Vera answered. “He won’t find us there.”

“He probably expects us to go to a home base, yeah?”

“Right on the nose.”

And so they walked for five, ten minutes to this bar. It was a bar and a restaurant, Vera ended up admitting as they went in. They hadn’t eaten, and they needed food in their bellies to figure out what to do next. No alcoholic drinks, either.

After they got their food, they went into planning.

“What do you think that means, ‘one year?’” Lena asked. “One year for what?”

“No idea,” Vera replied, and her next thought was interrupted by her ringing phone; it was Stella. She mouthed a sorry to Lena before answering.

“It’s Leckie,” Stella blurted out before Vera could greet her. “He got arrested.”

“What? How?” Vera was in disbelief. One of the smartest guys here got _arrested_?

“He dug a little too deep,” Stella lamented. “He forgot to cover his tracks this time and the FBI caught up to him. He’s going away for a long time.”

“Shit,” Vera said. “How are we gonna find this contract out now? And most importantly, what are you going to do now?”

Lena had her own problems to deal with across the table. She had to send Renée a text letting her know about Ray’s untimely passing, and instead of the normal “thanks for the update” text, she got: “Home base. Bomb. All up in flames. Gone. Will contact you when safe.”

Great. Just great. Just fucking peachy. Ray was dead and now home base doesn't even exist anymore. Everything's fucked.

It was the same on Vera's end.

"The FBI got Leckie, and chances are that they're going to come for the rest of us, too. We need to lay low for some time, can't do anything," Stella explained.

"For how long?"

"It's hard to say right now, but I'll text you with details later. I suggest you go underground, too."

There was a commotion happening in the background on Stella's end, and she said "gotta go" before hanging up. Any call made after that moment went straight to voicemail. After ten minutes, the automated voice said the number had been disconnected.

 "Lay low. See u soon." That was Renée's last message to Lena.

Only a glance had to be exchanged between Vera and Lena for both of them to understand what the other was going through, and that everything was totally and absolutely fucked on both ends.

"The other factions aren't faring well, I'm sure," Vera remarked.

Lena nodded in agreement, before finally suggesting drinks. “Well, we have a plan now. Don’t need to think anymore.”

“Agreed.” Vera needed a drink, and something that wasn’t a wine cooler this time. A strawberry daiquiri would do nicely for now.

“Where are we going to hide out?” Vera then asked.

“ _We_?” Lena asked. “You’re on board with the ‘we’ now?”

“Stronger in numbers,” Vera said, taking a long sip and giving Lena time to reply.

“Okay, so if _we_ are going to be together and hide out together, then where?” Lena asked. “It can’t be here. Nowhere in this state, nowhere in the surrounding states. Across the country or in an entirely different country are our only options.”

“Where do you suggest? London? Berlin? Paris?”

“Somewhere sunny. Beachy.”

“And we get a dog.”

Lena paused, thinking back to John. It had been months now, sure, but she couldn’t forget these plans that made her truly happy. She wanted this. And if she couldn’t have it with John…

“Sure,” Lena said. “We can do that.”

Vera’s eyes lit up. “I haven’t had a dog since I was a kid. I was planning on waiting until after I got out of my contract and I could move somewhere else, because I could never tell how long I’d be out for one contract, and I never wanted them to go hungry–”

Lena grabbed one of Vera’s hands and set it down on the table. “Vera. I got it. I understand,” she laughed. “You can pick the dog out if it makes you that happy.”

For a long time, Vera never took her hand out of Lena’s and just left it there. It felt warm and comforting, and she liked it there. She felt no nervousness or worry. She felt at ease.

She felt at home.

“Oh! The other letter!” Vera said suddenly, removing her hand and reaching into her pocket. Lena missed Vera’s hand being in her own, but she moved it back to her side of the table anyway. “Ray had this in his pocket with the other letter, but I never opened it.”

“I bet it’s got nothing written on it,” Lena said, who turned out to be right. It was blank. Even holding it up to the light revealed nothing.

With a sigh from Vera, she folded it back up and put it away. “Well, I don’t know what I expected.”

“Something written on it,” Lena smirked.

“Haha, very funny,” Vera said. She sat back in her chair and continued to drink, thinking as she did. Whoever set this up probably never imagined the two of them teaming up to figure out who exactly wanted them both dead. She bet they never saw their plan going this off the rails. “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry,” she ended up commenting.

“What was that?” Lena asked.

“A line from a poem we had to read in school,” Vera said. “It’s how _Of Mice and Men_ got its title: from this old Scottish poem, I think. It’s worded differently in the poem, but it sounds better like this.”

“What’s it mean?”

“That the best plans often fuck up in the end, something like that. Or that the best intentions often go awry. I was thinking about that whoever organized this whole thing couldn’t predict that this would happen, and their plan has gone horribly wrong.” She took a drink. “But anyway, the poem was about a mouse.”

“A mouse? Really?”

“I don’t want to remember high school, so it’s staying buried in the past, along with everything else from my childhood.”

Lena kept sipping at her drink, halfway finished with it. “Didn’t stop you from talking about your childhood earlier. To be fair, I _was_ threatening to kill you.”

“That you were.”

A pause.

“So, where to?” Vera asked. “Our exotic, months-long getaway.”

“In a different country, for sure. And if we were to get caught, there would definitely be feds involved. International law, extraditions. Total madhouse.” Lena smiled. “But I feel like that’s your style.”

“We’ve known each other for less than a day, and you already get me.” Vera smiled back. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

As they sat there, smiling at each other, Vera thought about how she never had many close friends growing up, no one that really understood her, and that maybe Lena could be the person to fill that role. But with the hand-holding, the joking earlier in the day, she figured that maybe it could be something more. That Lena could be _someone_ more.

And Lena’s own thoughts weren’t too far off, either. She had spent a long time mourning over John, and in light of recent events, she figured it was time to move past it. He would want that, he really would. He had told her that once, and she figured it was time to take his advice now.

Now, looking into Vera’s blue eyes, her beautiful sapphire blue eyes that she could swim in all day and never drown, maybe Lena really could learn to love again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Please leave a comment or kudos if you liked it and want to see more; these may help me get the next and final part out sooner than you think.


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